Is peer evaluation of consumer online reviews socially embedded? – An examination combining reviewer’s social network and social identity

• Published in: International journal of hospitality management 2017-10, Vol.67, p.143-153
• Main Authors: Li, Hengyun, Zhang, Ziqiong, Meng, Fang, Janakiraman, Ramkumar
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Negativity bias; Peer evaluation; Review sentiment; Social identity; Social network
• ISSN: 0278-4319; 1873-4693
• DOI: 10.1016/j.ijhm.2017.08.003

•This study used online reviews for hotels in Las Vegas in the modeling.•Review sentiment shows negative effect on “funny” and “useful” votes but positive influence on “cool” votes.•Both the size and composition of reviewer’s social network influence the peer evaluation votes on the review.•Reviewer’s expert/Elite social identity can mitigate the review negativity bias. In order to encourage users’ engagement as well as crowdsource quality control, a majority of online review websites have started to provide review peer evaluation votes, reviewer credentialing program and social network service. By considering the review text features as well as reviewer’s social identity and social network, this study examined the factors that influence the peer evaluation of hotel online reviews. The empirical results indicate that (1) review sentiment shows negative effect on “funny” and “useful” votes but positive influence on “cool” votes; (2) both the size and composition of a reviewer’s social network influence the peer evaluation votes on the review, while the latter imposes a much stronger effect; (3) reviewer’s expert/elite social identity can mitigate the review negativity bias. Our study suggests that the review voting context matters and peer evaluation votes of online reviews are socially embedded.